Failings of the Language and other Technicalities
by exorcisingemily
Summary: Semantics, technicalities, personal pronouns, time indicators and other frustrating aspects of being human. Adaptation to life as a human isn't easy. Pt 1: 10.5/Rose. Pt 2: 10.5 meets 11, as he rewinds through his past. Snarking ensues.
1. Failings of the Language

**Author's Note**: If you haven't seen all through Series Four, you shouldn't read this. In fact, you shouldn't be reading anything. You should be going and watching that. And then, while you're at it, watch the cut scene of Donna and the Doctor giving Rose and her Doctor a coral of the TARDIS. It'll make everything else make far more sense, and like me you'll live in a happy little land where you can imagine they're out on adventures together in a parallel dimension of the Whoverse.

* * *

Metacrises.

As logical as it was, as quickly as the word popped into his Time Lord brain, he disliked the term. He particularly disliked it when applied to himself—truthfully, it would be a brilliant word if it didn't apply to him. It would have to be brilliant. It was his word, and he was brilliant.

When applied to him, however, it called to mind too quickly what happened when an otherwise nearly immortal being engaged in a mid-life crises. Over 900 years old, a barely contained whirlwind, an anchorless traveler of time and space, an adventurer. . . if one were to take a creature like that, and smack him into a mid-life crises, what else could it be but this.

He had a lease, and a little blue hybrid car that was for all intents and purposes smaller on the inside, and a steady job that thankfully was lenient enough to not expect him to work a consistent nine-to-five. He could shirk his duties, kite off on a lark, and given how valuable they believed him to be (and quite rightly) he would still have a job when he returned.

The trouble was, of course, that he wasn't kiting off on a moment's notice. That would have been normal, at least in his terms of normal. No, he was cloistered in a windowless room in an agency he was still relatively queasy about belonging to, no matter how much of a dangerous, violent, genocidal individual he believed himself to be (personal pronouns were a troublesome matter when you were part of a duplicate pair, he found quickly). His erstwhile companion-slash-babysitter was still conflicted enough about his existence that she was avoiding him, and he couldn't find it in himself to stray far while she was still around.

And the truly painful part of it all was that he couldn't blame her, any more than he could blame himself (his other self, that is) for leaving him.

He understood, oh far too well, what his other self believed of him—because he believed it, too. In their previous incarnation, daft face and large ears, he'd still seen himself that way. And even as he looked in the mirror in the years prior to the metacrises, after Rose was lost to him, he saw a killer behind the dashing good looks and cheeky smile. He always would. The day he looked in the mirror and failed to see himself as the culmination of all of his sins, the hard choices, the pain and the loss, and saw only what he wished to, he would become something else. Something worse. He was relatively certain that had as much to do with The Master's psychosis as any real or imagined drumming.

It wasn't a matter of deluding himself into thinking he was something other than what he was. It was a matter of finding a reason to keep making the choices, and not to be crushed under the weight of them, and the will to continue hoping for the best even in the face of the worst.

Rose had done that for him, then.

And now. . . well, and now there was a new tally to add to his self loathing. A whole new level of insecurity. Because he was himself, but not—and it was that "not" that Rose saw, the flash of pain in her eyes when he did manage to coax a smile out of her. And that stab of selfishness that followed his own pleasure at her company, the momentary flare of possessiveness. For her to be his, he had to steal her from his other self. Worse, his other self had given her to him.

Rose looked at him, and believed she'd been cast away.

He looked at Rose, and knew the pain losing her had given his other self, knew the level of sacrifice it took, and knew that he'd condemned himself to die alone. His song was ending, after all.

It haunted him. No one would be there to hold his hand. The others had fled him, and Donna. . . willful, brilliant Donna who had been his best friend and was now something like a lost twin. . . she was going to forget him. And more and more, as his still fantastic Time Lord brain turned to his own predicament, the damndable ability to watch time ebb and flow had him feeling the cells of his human body decaying around him, the daily death of skin and hair, slightly less perfect each time, the slow march towards a human death. The one great adventure he'd had to look forward to and he was wasting precious, limited time without the one person who he wanted to spend it with.

On the other hand, he had projects. The little chunk of TARDIS was slowly growing in the tank before him, bathed in golden light, with coiling coral surrounding an increasingly box-like shape. The hum of his sonic screwdriver sounded nearly right, now, and was far less likely to spark when the radio played (it would be far, far easier when the TARDIS could simply fabricate him another). Torchwood had encountered one alien race (it had gone badly—they really needed to learn the fine art of negotiation, or let him do it so he couldn't scoff at their failures) and thwarted an invasion attempt of another (his success, this time—at least they trusted him when it came to outmaneuvering and out-thinking others).

And he'd turned his office into a haven, thumbed his nose at Torchwood's authority over him as much as he could while still collecting a check, claimed Office number 42 for the Authur Dent-ish-ness of it, and had gotten them all to concede to continuing to call him The Doctor. He even had it on the sign on his door, a tongue-in-cheek notification of whether The Doctor was "IN" or "OUT." It was a relatively insignificant victory that held a great deal of personal importance for him. If he accepted a different name, if he adopted a permanent pseudonym, he was admitting he was a simple copy.

He refused.

Nine hundred years of memories, the same body (more or less), the same mind, the same pains and joys, he refused to see himself as a clone, or in any way unequal. If he didn't hold himself in the same regard, Rose never could.

Rose.

He could smell her, the fine Time Lord senses dulled enough by his new body that it took him a moment, but attuned to her enough that he could pick out her perfume as it reached him from the door. Hand pressed to the glass of the tank he forced himself not to tense, and not to initiate. It was her turn, now, to come to him. He'd already made his feelings clear, said the words that he'd always felt, and he wouldn't push. Wouldn't insist.

He was as curious as he was strangely off balance. He wanted to know what happened next, and the only way to do so was to let it happen.

"Red. That's new." There was a faint sense of tension to her voice, the forced lightness that he recognized as her attempt to start them out on a playful note while she determined what to say. He took it into consideration in his answer, lips quirking into slight smile, but answered seriously. "New-New TARDIS. I assumed it would be morbidly nostalgic to recreate her as a perfect replica, and the phone boxes around here are red. I can always go break her chameleon circuit later, if we miss the blue."

"New-New TARDIS for the New-New-New Doctor?" She approached him slowly, letting the door close behind her again with a gentle shnick of the latch catching, and he found his other hand seeking her out, their palms warm against each other as he twined his fingers through hers. And it felt _right_. This body was made for holding her hand.

"Technically, it's more like a New-New TARDIS for the New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New-New. . . New_ish_ Doctor." He let his words rattle off, a cheerful banter to rival the lightness of their conversation at New New York, and laughed as she caught on quickly, her free hand tallying the 'new's. She had always been too curious about him, about his past lives, for her own good.

For a moment, it was just The Doctor and Rose Tyler as they should be, her pointed tongue caught between her teeth in a grin, her shoulder bumping up against his in a jovial manner. He found himself daring to hope again, squeezing her hand lightly as he turned to face her, taking in her features illuminated in the soft golden light of the growing TARDIS.

It took his breath away.

"Same goofy grin, though. How soon do you think she'll be ready for us?"

Part of him wanted to rattle off the effects of modifying the dimensional stabiliser, and explain foldback harmonics to her by using a tuning fork, the sonic screwdriver, and jazz piano records, and share in the sheer elation that making it _work_ had given him, whether she grasped the particulars or not. Part of him wanted to expound on his cleverness, build it up a bit, ensure she was aware of just how fantastic he was to have it this far already even with Donna's parting suggestions, and then astound her with impossible completion dates that he'd force himself to meet, so long as she kept holding his hand. And then there was the other voice, the quiet, almost hesitant one, that simply caught on that last single syllable utterance with so much significance, begging her to expound on "Us?"

He'd already gone with option three, before he'd had time to construct either other option into words.

"Well, someone has to keep an eye on you." The meaning is playful, the tone teasing, but at her words he can feel himself deflate. His hand feels cold and clammy after he pulls free from her grip, and he does what he has always done, or as close as he can given the circumstances, by circling the TARDIS, twiddling with dials on the outside of the tank, turning monitors to impractical angles to read results, catching his rolling chair and sailing across the room to get his sonic screwdriver from his workbench.

His mouth was back on autopilot, but in the safer way. Of everything he'd learned, and experienced, he'd always had yammering as a primary defensive maneuver.

"Ah. Yes. I thought that's what your staff here was for, to keep an eye on the dangerous half-alien in your midst. I have to say, Rose, if you're going to leave me with minders and snitches as a staff, please find me one that can make a decent cuppa. That last one made tea worse than your mother."

"Stop." She was following him slowly in his circuit, now, a bizarre dance of maintained distances, him moving when she moved, stopping when she stopped, all the while making it seem as if it was merely his tasks that kept him out of reach.

"Don't tell her I said that, though. I think your mother takes a perverse sort of pride in being the best at tormenting me, and I'd hate to deprive her of that. Three weeks! Three weeks of living in that great bloody mansion under the same roof as her until I got my flat, and I think she spent every day of it finding new and unusual ways to torture me."

"Please, just stop." There was a quiet plea in her voice, a note of desperation as she begged for reason, for a chance to say her piece. His rambling commentary continued without pause, punctuated by the whir of the screwdriver, and the squeak of one faulty wheel on the chair. He became instantly engaged by that squeak, determined to fix it, still talking.

"One of them, one of them looked like shepherd's pie. Shepherd's pie! How hard is that, really. Bit of meat, bit of mash, couple of vegetables. . . I think it was still _moving_. How, exactly, is it that food made predominantly from leftovers can still be trying to fight back. And she brandished a fork at me when I suggested she let the help take over the. . ."

"Doctor, please." His jaw shut with a snap mid-word, dark eyes leveling an almost palpably intent stare, and he stood with the chair between them, knuckles white as he clenched the backrest in his hands. It was a disconcerting change, a mask ripped away in the middle of a performance. The silence was nearly deafening-she could hear the hitch in her breathing, the faint rubbery squeak of her trainers on the concrete floor as she closed the distance again, knees brushing the edge of the chair that stood between them as a barrier.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. I was scared, and I was confused, and I'd just lost you again after travelling so far to find you. I needed time and you. . . you make it hard to think. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, that I left you alone." Breaking eye contact, the Doctor bowed his head, holding the chair between them as a shield. She watched him, noting the tension running through the set of his lean shoulders beneath the tailored blue jacket, the deliberate blanking of his expression as he closed his eyes. She hesitates a moment, before resting her hand over one of his on the chair, curling the tips of her fingers against his in lieu of being permitted to clasp hands with him. "After everything, after he promised. . . I was left behind. And then I did it to you, Doctor. I'm the worst sort of hypocrite, and I'm. . ."

"I didn't leave you behind." There was steel in the Doctor's tone, a rasping, rough and unyielding edge that brooked no argument. When she opened her mouth to correct him, he pinned her with a stare, eyes open again, jaw set stubbornly. "I didn't leave you behind. I made a promise to you, an impossible promise, that I would never do that to you. If I'd broken it, I could have saved you so much pain, so much loss. But I made you a promise, and the universe gave me a way to keep it at last. And I took it. You keep looking at us as separate, as different people-the one who left, and the one who stayed. The duplicate and the original. That's not the case. We're not two sides of the same coin, we're the same man-I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking it. We both saw the decisions that had to be made. I made the call to destroy the Daleks-but the thought crossed his mind, as well. We made the decision before, at the expense of Gallifrey. I'm no more a monster for it now than I was then. Of course. . ." the quick bark of laughter is mirthless, bitter, and hard. . . "I'm no _less_ of one than I was then, either."

Rose pried the fingers of his hand up to hold it, and the Doctor didn't resist. Looking down at the back of her hand, he nodded slightly to himself, and continued-she didn't interrupt him. She didn't dare.

"Standing on that beach, we both saw the decision that had to be made. And _he_ made the hard call, the one we both saw coming. I took on new nightmares to save the universe, and he gave up his dream to keep a promise I made to you. And I stayed." Running his thumb along the backs of her knuckles, the Doctor slowly relinquished his hold on the chair and pushed it aside with his foot, sending it rolling away with wheel still squeaking, removing the physical barrier between them while turning and flattening her hand along his, studying her palm intently. "You called me Doctor." It was a sudden change of pace once again, a shift of tone and timbre, rich and velvet. "Three times, now, in one conversation. You've never addressed me by name, not since Bad Wolf Bay. . . So I'm still the Doctor, then?"

On the top of the Sycorax ship, sword in his newly regenerated hand. . . the twin to the 'fighting hand' currently cradling her own. . . the weight of the question had still been there, regardless of the tone. He'd changed in front of her, transformed into a new man, and he was uncertain that their relationship would withstand it. Now, everything hinged on her answer again, and there were no distractions to downplay the gravity of it all. In the end, there was only one response she could give.

"No arguments from me."

His grin that lit his face was transformative, stripping away the pain and uncertainty and leaving behind the same man she'd seen glimpses of since their first encounter, the smile she'd recognize whatever face he might have ended up with. "Now, that _would_ be a change." His free hand snaked around her waist as she flung her arms around him, face buried in his shoulder, laughter bubbling up with her relief as he spun her, toes barely brushing the ground.

"I missed you." The words were muffled against his neck, but he hummed his agreement nonetheless, dropping her back down to her feet eventually, his back flattened against the glass of the tank as he loosened his hold on her, flashing his cheeky smile again. "Quite right, too. Now. . . do you still trust me, Rose? I want to show you something fan_tas_tic."

Eyebrow arched she bit her tongue, grinning suggestively. For once, he didn't miss the significance.

"Oi! Mind out of the gutter. That's the problem with you humans, always letting hormones get in the way of thinking. " Pausing, he considered the situation a moment, before resting his forehead against hers, eyes narrowing. "I'm mostly human in that regard now, aren't I? That's going to get interesting. Wait, it _is_ going to get interesting, isn't it?" He shouldn't have sounded so hopeful. It was getting him entirely off track, and she wasn't helping at all, biting her lip like that and standing so near him. He scowled at her without heat, and unable to keep the expression despite the fact that she was doing a very poor job at stifling her laughter at his expense. And she hadn't answered the question either, too busy shaking with mirth. Injustice, thy name is woman. "Ahem. Time and a place for it. Sorry. Where was I? Ah. Yes. Trust."

Taking her captured hand up between them, he let the smile slide mostly away, looking for her permission first. Lip quirking up again, Rose nodded, head canting to the side in curiosity. "I trust you, Doctor. Always."

His tug on her wrist sets her slightly off balance, leaning heavily into him and pinning him against the glass of the tank. Glass that was cool under her fingertips, as he pressed their hands to it together behind him, dropping his chin to bring his lips closer to her ear as his other arm slid around her back to fix her there against his chest. "Close your eyes for me, then, and listen."

She was going to ask what for, going to question his motives, or give up and take advantage of having him at her disposal, but she heard something, a sound at the edge of her consciousness just out of the range of hearing. Closing her eyes she tried to chase it down, and it strengthened slowly. Lilting music, beautiful and tuneless, a melody that seemed to dance through her mind, growing stronger as it did.

It was almost familiar, almost. . . something. Resting her cheek against the Doctor's chest, she listened through him, the steady pounding of his single heart adding a rhythm to the song that seemed to adjust to match it. She could hear the murmured words rumble through his chest as he began a quiet explanation, without seeming compelled to move either of them at the moment. The music floated around the words, an ebb and flow of sound that rose and fell with his voice. "It's her. It's the TARDIS, singing. She just started today, only a few hours before you walked in. . . I was listening to her when you did, and she recognized you. Changed the whole song, having you here. Lighter, happier-better than she was getting from a morose old human Time Lord like me." He pressed a kiss to her hair, then, shifting to brace his feet against the concrete so he could half lounge with her against him, the burbling tank of the TARDIS to keep him upright.

"Clever girl, she is. . . one little shard of coral, but she remembered us. And she's so alive, Rose. She's alive, and she's growing, and she's learning. Learning me. It's a bond, you know. I could always feel her, hear her, just like this. And now. . . " She could feel his smile, feel his joy-the sound of it reflected in the song in her mind. "Now she's bonding to you, too. She was your home as much as mine, from the moment you set foot in her. And now this one, she'll know you from the start, without hundreds of years of my bad influence beforehand. She'll be yours. . ." Hooking his fingertip beneath her chin, the Doctor raised Rose's gaze back to him, offering her the quirk of a smile, laced with hope and trepidation. ". . .like me, if you'll have me."

At Bad Wolf Bay, there had been a slamming TARDIS door to interrupt them, pain and loss, her mother and Donna and his other self looking on, their closest relations stacked about them like some sort of mad soap opera audience, spectators for a private moment. This time, when she tugged his lips down to hers, pulling him away from the glass by the lapels of his jacket, there was only them and the TARDIS, no interruptions, and an entire future before them.

The song shifted dramatically, and for the moment neither of them cared.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Here's hoping I didn't run too long, either-apparently, the Doctor brings out my own inherent wordiness. Meanwhile, if you're a Buffy fan, you may understand the significance of my making the phone box red. It's not my fault Joss Whedon's had Rose and the Doctor and a red phone box scattered throughout the background of Season 8. . .


	2. Boundaries, and Self Inflicted Violence

**Author's Note: **Alright, so I'm clearly unable to stay away. That was meant to be a oneshot, but I've had several drabbles on this line of possibility pop into my head since writing it. This, too, could be considered a oneshot-each chapter stands alone. This one, however, assumes you've watched all of Season 5. Which you absolutely should.

* * *

Leaning against an improbably placed red phone box, trainers half dug into the sand at his feet, the Doctor looked up as light flared. The sudden illumination painted the insides of his eyelids vibrant red-he'd been examining them studiously for the past eight minutes and thirty six seconds, not napping. His superior Time Lord physiology had won out in his creation. Cat naps were for lesser beings.

And he would stridently maintain that fact, no matter how many times Rose pointed out otherwise, and regardless of how often she smirked at him and adopted a patronizing tone in response to his assertions.

Even expecting it, even having arrived with the express purpose of seeing it again, the break in the sky and sand was unnerving, a sense of wrongness that permeated his consciousness. The fight or flight instinct in his mind was screaming at him to run, to scramble backwards on his heels and into safety. He ignored it deliberately, hoisting himself back to his feet and brushing sand off of his suit as he waited. He'd positioned himself well away from where he knew the crack would be, away from the slowly eroding impression the TARDIS had left on the beach so long ago, and yet only two hours past.

English was a rubbish language for time differentials caused by his unique mode of travel, as well.

Of course, it seemed the Doctor was unable to accurately stick a landing regardless of what regeneration he was in and even in rewinding through his own past. He'd been a bit off in showing up where he had in the center of London, where he and Rose and Mickey had first crashed the TARDIS through the void to Pete's World-it was how this Doctor, Rose's Doctor, had known to look for himself here.

It didn't make his appearance, suddenly stumbling out of nowhere and into the sand face-first, any less ridiculous.

"It's the bow tie. I think the sheer camp of it is throwing you off balance." The fully Time Lord Doctor looked up to find his duplicate's hand extended to pull him to his feet with a wry grin belied by the intensity of his scrutinizing stare. "I have more to say on the matter, but you'll be hearing it next, and I've said it already. The first time we ran into each other, from my perspective. It's quite good. I'll let you experience it all fresh then."

Clasping hands, the eleventh Doctor allowed himself to be hauled back upright, taking in the other man's appearance with a raised eyebrow. "You have a beard. And you remember me. And you exist. And your TARDIS is red. Clearly, those aren't in order of importance, but they're all oddities that I feel bear note."

Scrubbing a hand over his chin, the human Doctor wrinkled his nose, offering a faintly sheepish expression and responding in order. . . and in the level of detail his vanity dictated he must, to excuse his appearance. "It's not a look I'm cultivating, just one I've found myself in for the time being. Only a few days stubble. It itches. But it's hard to find time to shave when you barely have time to sleep, and Rose would suspect I was nipping away in the TARDIS for a break if I showed up well rested and shaved. Nappy changes and bottles are my responsibility between ten at night and seven in the morning."

Ignoring the keen interest displayed by the eleventh Doctor, he ticked off responses to the rest methodically, with a rapid fire delivery. "I am you, so of course I remember you. I exist, because Rose Tyler's memory is a force to be reckoned with, and I chose a rather inopportune moment to cease existing if I wanted to not be remembered. And yes. It is red. Your powers of observation are astounding." The madcap grin that split his face was painfully familiar, even with a few years of elapsed time to age him, deepening the creases at the corners of his eyes and lips. "And I'll continue going through your obvious observations before you even make them! This is Bad Wolf Bay. Again. I watched myself leave with Rose a bit ago. You missed. Which I knew you would, as you weren't here and I'm fairly sure that I'd have seen you standing about. You'll pop back up in London, later, and spend your time criticizing my Torchwood team for doing their job keeping people from wandering into a hole in the fabric of reality that you're responsible for (which, by the by, is part of why you're going nowhere near my TARDIS-the other part being that she's still developing and I'm not going to have you imprinting yourself on her). You also apologize several times for something I assume you're going to do to me here and now. You're also not listening to me at all, now, and haven't been for several minutes... bit rude, isn't it? I'm still rude! I wonder how many regenerations that makes now. . ."

"A baby. Rose and you, and a baby. I have a baby. I'm a father." Raking his hands through his brownish fall of hair, the Doctor continued staring at his half-human duplicate, processing slowly while planning rapidly-this apparent contradiction being a particular talent of his. "I'm being erased through history, but that still is. . . "

"Oi!_ I'm_ a father. You've been busy blowing up our TARDIS and uniting our enemies in a common cause, apparently. I'd distinctly remember you being involved with my becoming a father. Your presence would have been noted and discouraged. We may technically be variations of the same man, and have nine hundred years of shared memories, but these past five years of them are mine and that bit really, really just mine, and why are you looking at me like . . ."

He didn't allow for time to prepare, couldn't afford the time to think matters through. Hand clamping down on his counterpart's shoulder, the eleventh Doctor stepped forward, feet bracing on the uncertain surface of the sand, and slammed his forehead against his duplicate's, initiating contact.

Nine hundred and six years, they had the same memories. They'd been the same man, or pieces of that man laying in wait-a man in eleven parts, so far, comprising a whole Time Lord. In five years of separation, they'd evolved: regeneration, human life, disparate experiences, separate adventures. For a moment, however, they were nearly the same man again, the closest they'd been since the moment Donna Nobel had reached out to touch the glow surrounding his severed hand,and imparted a bit of herself in the creation of something new.

Images flooded them, sending the eleventh Doctor stumbling forward slightly, while the human Doctor hit the ground hard, hand pressed to the growing lump on his forehead, eyes closed against the onslaught of experiences.

_Donna Nobel's eyes shining with tears of pain and fear as he did what he had to, and then blank of all recognition, dismissive. Rose Tyler, tears in her eyes as she walked away from him, so unable to handle being left again that she did the leaving. _

_The sharp report of gunfire ending delusions of the Time Lord Victorious, Adelaide Brooke taking her life to preserve history. Torchwood, the constant back and forth struggle of right and moral, piecing together what kind of man he'd be by weighing the cost of failure versus the cost of losing his self respect. _

_The ache of dying alone and explosion of energy as he fought the golden light of regeneration, the universe's song to him bringing him to his rest. The song of the new TARDIS and Rose cradled against his chest and lit by the tank of coral, tongue caught between her teeth in a grin of shared joy and rediscovered affection. _

_Amelia Pond the child and Amy Pond the woman all in the space of a day, and that questionable maturity undone in a matter of moments with the smile of an imaginary friend with a magic box telling her there was no need to be grown up. The feeling of waking up tangled in warm sheets and smooth limbs, and knowing that the sabotaged alarm clock would get him another two hours of time to appreciate both that morning before she caught on to his scheme to embroil her in his horrible work habits and skip work or show up late and disheveled with him, daily._

_River Song falling into his arms, and sauntering around the TARDIS with tongue in cheek warnings of spoilers, red heels dangling from the view screen, and boring blue switches that displayed an eerie familiarity that shouldn't __**be**__ yet. Jackie Tyler ruining an absolutely brilliant proposal plan by needling him about making an honest woman out of her daughter in front of said daughter, twenty minutes before they were to walk out on the perfect evening he'd planned, until his composure was shot and the surprise was replaced by accidentally proposing in front of her mother and father in the foyer of their flat, her hands too occupied with holding Tony to really even hand her the ring. _

_Pressing a blank diary into the hands of a woman who he suspected had been (but never was, but might be someday) his wife (but might be the woman who'd literally be the death of him), and asking her to please, _please_ remember him enough to give the book to a stranger as a wedding gift, because his life depended on it and their nebulous possible future that was her past. Rose's face as Pete walked her down the isle, hazel eyes bright even beneath the haze of lace and veil, her tongue caught between her teeth in that smile that was _his_, and _she_ was his, and he _belonged_ now forever irrevocably till death do they part and to the end of time and space and with everything they were, but without the obedience rubbish because some promises one shouldn't even try to make as they were doomed to failure. _

_Little Amelia Pond, her red galoshes and knit hat, curled up in his arms as he carried her to bed, telling her a story-his last hope for survival in the mind of eight year old girl. His daughter's tiny fist closing around his pinky in a vice grip, as she nestled in between them on the hospital bed, and Rose's tired brilliant beautiful smile as she admitted that between the shock of brown hair and the shape of her face she looked like her father, and they'd just have to pray she wasn't as rude. _

Trainers might not be particularly ideal footwear when it came to imparting pain, but apparently when applied correctly even red Converse could topple a Time Lord. Laid out on the sand, one cradling his ankle, the other clutching his head, the Doctors scowled nearly identical scowls, regardless of changed faces.

"I might. . . _might_. . . have forgiven you that invasion of privacy if either of us really thought you were going to wink out of existence. But I knew when I saw you in London that you had a plan already and my plans are always brilliant and you were me and therefore almost equally brilliant, but blimey have you lost all finesse in this regeneration? Headbutting?"

Laying his head back on the sand, the eleventh Doctor looked to the sky, watching the sea birds circle and counting down the moments until he found himself rewinding one last time. "Is it self-loathing if I hate you a bit?"

"Is it self-abuse if I kick you again?" Hauling himself back to lean his head against the red wooden panels of the TARDIS, pulling faces with his eyes closed while waiting for the dizziness to pass, the human Doctor sighed. "You get that one for free. More or less. I know what it was like, leaving her. And I knew you were going off to save Donna and regenerate alone. I may be you, and you may be me, but you left me here to live my life and I'm going to live it. Go live yours."

Put that way, there was really only one possible answer.

His apology is swallowed by the pull of the crack in time, and given to him both too early and too late, in the middle of London, and while being lambasted with rude commentary about his very cool tie.

It was fair trade for being able to experience the joy of life on the slow path. He'd take that with him, as soon as Amy brought him back.

(Because his plans _are_ still brilliant).


	3. Nonverbal Communication

**Author's Note:** Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey. This chapter takes place directly after the events of Chapter 1, before the events of Chapter 2 (though as far as the Eleventh Doctor is concerned, this is all just now rattling in his head after Chapter 2). The Doctor Duplicate and Rose have just reconciled. Reading that chapter first might help, whereas the rest can (more or less) stand alone though they're all linked in their ways. Remaining chapters will tighten the links between each.

* * *

She never fully remembered their first kiss.

Every once in a while after he regenerated, he caught her staring at his lips as if she almost remembered and held his breath until he saw her dismiss it. She still struggled in remembering anything of her time as the Bad Wolf, her mind and his telepathy having locked it away from her for their safety. If he'd stayed in that form, if he hadn't regenerated, he wasn't sure he would have been able to keep it from her. He'd felt her entire being surge towards him, when he drew the energy of the Time Vortex out of her, and he knew what it had done for him.

It made him a new man.

His ninth regeneration had been born out of anger and fear and war and pain and battle, and it showed in every line of his lean, angular frame. He carried the time war with him like a physical weight on his shoulders, pressing him down to the earth.

Rose made him want to dance again.

In this form, he'd been besotted with her from the start. He'd never been vain before–oh, he'd had his share of strange fashions, but he'd never been concerned with how other people saw him to the extent that he was when she looked at him. If his last form had been born to withstand the war and look the part, this one was born to suit her.

This form seemed designed to hold her hand, to run with her, for smiles and laughter and long looks and swooping hugs. Again, she had their second first kiss stolen from her, the invasion in her mind leaving them both with the memory, but allowing him an easy way to escape, to be the coward he was. They might dance, but they'd never _dance_. He wouldn't do that to her, not when he couldn't even gather the courage enough to say the words.

He had given her that, on the shore at Bad Wolf Bay, a murmur of love into her ear that out of pity he'd kept quieted in front of his other half. They had years of memories of regret, haunted by the irony of the Time Lord running out of time, chased by memories of her smile and her laughter wherever he went, and he knew that he was being given a gift. His one human heart, diminished capabilities, and _Rose Tyler_.

He was filled with such hope, until the TARDIS began its dematerialization.

Quite a long time ago, Sarah Jane had brought a stack of DVDs onto the TARDIS, thrilled with the novelty of them compared to the technology of her time. Movies that were brand new to her, still in theaters or in production when she'd first started travelling with him, pressed onto discs with crisp images, able to flip around scenes and containing special features from actors aged decades between her time and their release in the medium. He would watch them indulgently, or catch bits and pieces as he bustled about the TARDIS with his ridiculous scarf practically sweeping the floor behind him.

He remembered a young Dustin Hoffman sitting next to a woman in a white wedding gown in the back of a bus, making their escape towards their happy futures with laughter and smiles, running hand in hand from everything they left behind. And stepping up to Rose Tyler on that beach, taking her hand in his as she stood stiffly next to him, and the elation of their kiss drained away, he remembered the look they gave the camera at the end of The Graduate. The last, melancholy note that ended a scene that could have been joyful, hopeful, beautiful. The sense that not everything would be a fairytale. That perhaps they hadn't thought it through fully. That they were failing before they'd even truly started.

Rose's hand had been limp in his, her stare fixed on the sand where the TARDIS had sat, and the opportunity that kiss afforded had been ripped away from him as effectively as the previous had been, but with the painful added knowledge that they both remembered it, but that the memory was tainted enough that she never wanted to consider it.

He had no idea how long he'd held her there, memorizing the shape of her mouth with his tongue, but he was waiting until the desperation of their first kiss was gone from her memory before he let her go.

He could feel the light scrape of her nails against his scalp, her fingers woven into the hair he knew through proxies (Cassandra's transferring consciousness, Donna's description of her description of him) that she was really quite fond of. Her body was tucked closely against his, trapping him comfortably between her warmth and the cold of the tank behind him, half upright and half reclining, a hand splayed across the small of her back and the other holding hers against the tank.

He was more than content with kissing her. Elated. Ecstatic. Enthralled. Entranced. Other words that began with E, now that his mind had begun incessant alliterations, higher functions shutting down rapidly, leaving only the whittering portions that never seemed to completely stop, that took over when babbling was all he needed.

He broke the kiss slowly, traitorous human lungs burning from the need to breathe, and pulled her closer, shifting to change their position against the glass. He was only attempting to make up for the difference in their heights by angling himself more, hoisting her half braced on his thigh.

It was a simple plan, with relatively (relativity being important, though he was beginning to forget why) noble intentions. He'd have stopped at merely kissing her, done the gentlemanly thing and treated her like he'd want his Rose to be treated. He was in control, more or less, until in pulling her up against him, his leg between her thighs to keep her half-perched at his height, she dropped her chin, burying her face into the V of his shirt where his loosened tie hung uselessly, and swallowed down a low moan of desire at the friction.

All of his plans unraveled as rational thought left him, shattered by one muffled sound and the heat of her breath against the column of his throat.

Suddenly, he felt it raining down on him, leaving his skin flushed, his single heart racing. He could feel his pupils dilate, hungry for more detail, could feel chemical cocktails pour off of her skin, pinging off of his hypothalamus, his prefrontal cortex and brainstem in competition until _thought_ succumbed to _want_. A haze of oxytocin, estradiol, pheremones spiking in the air around her, natural chemicals with complex compositions that together spelled out _lust_.

In their years travelling together, he had come to recognized the tang of it, had clinically filed the information away, stumbled through redirection or thrown them into adventure to diffuse whatever situation raised it before, and could look at it scientifically in fascination: The human female, aroused. Now he was not only the intended target but a _receptive _target, and he was drunk on it, biologically human enough that she was as potent as any drug.

He realized he'd frozen when she traced her fingertip across his lips, watching him through heavy lids, and lashes thick with mascara, all the hazel of her eyes wicked away into ink black. It was predatory and vulnerable and intentionally and unintentionally alluring, and he was transfixed by her stare and the heat of her against him.

"Doctor?"

The way she said his _name_. . .

He wasn't aware that he'd turned them until he felt the chilled glass of the tank against both of his palms, trapping her between the growing TARDIS and him. Through a supreme effort of will he held himself at arm's length, so that the only thing that touched her as he dipped back in was his lips, grazing along the shell of her ear. He could barely recognize his own voice, low and gravelly and raw as it was.

"Oh, Rose Tyler, you're going to be the death of me."

Bending his neck, his tongue dipped into the deep pool of her clavicle, tasting her skin, talented tongue sorting soap from salt to tingling sensation of arousal, before tracing her collar bone up to the hollow of her throat and laying a kiss there, drawing unsteady breaths and memorizing the scent of her all over again as her pulse thrummed against his lips. The freedom to touch her was almost overwhelming his common sense-he knew he didn't want to end their conversation this way. That throwing themselves from being estranged friends who barely spoke into lovers was unwise, rash, ill advised. . .

Long overdue.

"Tell me to stop, Rose. Please." She had always been there to pull him back from the brink, to tell him when to stop, to at least try to push sense into him when darker impulses took control. He needed her, now, needed her to tell him to wait. He'd wait for her forever, if she asked him. He just needed her to ask. . .

Instead she turned the tables, bracing against the glass with her back and hooking one foot out to twine her leg around his, pulling him flush against her again as she strained up towards his lips, using the silk of his tie to pull him down halfway to meet her.

"You said, Doctor, that you were mine if I wanted you. And I do." Her teeth grazed his lower lip, tongue soothing the playful nip immediately. "I want you."

He was intelligent enough to know when he'd lost, and he'd always been powerless in denying his pink and yellow human anything she wanted.

As she pushed him back away from the tank one step at a time, both of them nearly tangling their legs in his jacket as it hit the floor, his grin broke the seal of their kiss, his laughter rumbling in his chest, threatening to bubble out, coloring his words.

"Yep. Still got it."

His tie pulled free of his collar like a whipcrack, the back of his knees hit the rolling chair, and he decided that the squeak of the wheel was charming and that he'd been a fool for thinking it needed fixing.


End file.
